Communications networks that interconnect electronic components in a vehicle may operate under one or more protocols such as the Controller Area Network (CAN), Local Interconnect Network (LIN), and the FlexRay protocol. In automotive systems, in particular the operation of these automotive networks is often subject to safety and reliability requirements to ensure the safety of the automobile and its passengers. For example, robustness against absorbed radiation and suppressing of the generation of radiation may be a part of a conformance test.
The FlexRay protocol utilizes a high data rate up to 10 Mbit/s to connect automotive electronic control units (ECUs), such as electronic control modules (ECM), transmission control modules (TCM), brake control modules (BCM)), Central Control Modules (CCM), Central Timing Modules (CTM), General Electronic Modules (GEM), Body Control Modules (BCM), Suspension Control Modules (SCM), control units, or control modules. Dual wires are used as the medium for communications, and signaling on the bus is accomplished by asserting a differential voltage between those two wires in the FlexRay protocol. The bus may have three states: two data states and an idle state. Also, the FlexRay protocol limits the propagation delay, jitter, EMC requirements, network topologies, and functional transceiver operation modes for the communications network. For example, the network topology may include point-to-point connections via linear passive busses and passive stars up to active star topologies.
One component of a communications network is a receiver, which is used to receive and transform a signal, for example a bus signal. For example, a receiver converts the information carried by the signal to a usable form, for example by converting an analog signal to a digital signal.